How Many Men Does it Take to Repair a Stop Tap - Part 2.

Yesterday was just a comedy of comings and goings by the Water Board to repair a small stop tap outside in the entrance to the drive. We reached a total of 12 men 6 vehicles and endless long tea breaks, well that was until my dear Sister reminded me of the crew that came out days ago to find the leak. Even though the water was seeping from the stop tap and running down the road, the search was on for the problem.

One man produced a long stick which he put to his ear and walk around the area stopping only to rest it on the ground and listen intently, whilst this went on his mate carefully held on to a paint spray can. "Has your wife got any water running?" ask the senior man to my neighbour. Diving indoors to check he did confirmed that nothing was running. A few more circuits of the area listening through his stick and he pointed to the spot where the water was coming out of the stop tap and announced, "It's leaking from here". Now I'm no expert on water leaks but a blind man with a dry finger could have discovered that. His mate, with the spray can, marked the stop tap with a blue cross. (So that's increased the Water Board output now to 14 men and 7 vehicles.)

Back to yesterday and we were left with a large hole, back filled with soil and topped off with gravel, no tarmac yet and all  the barriers + signs were piled against my bungalow. I popped out to do some shopping when on my return discovered that they had returned and covered the hole in tarmac, my spies reported that it was 2 more men and of course another vehicle, oh and they hadn't taken all the barriers and road signs that was still in the drive against my building. (Are you still counting or have you run out of fingers, it's 16 different men with 8 different vehicles.)

Fortunately I was in my front garden during the afternoon, putting primroses in the pots, when another vehicle arrived, would you believe it there was only 1 man who's job it was to pick up the signs. I couldn't control myself anymore and told him what was happening to which he said, "Ridiculous isn't it, I have a laptop in my cab and if there were some roadwork signs etc on the other side of the road I'm not allowed to move them until a note appears on this laptop, knowing our workmanship I'll probably see you again in the next few months.

So there you go, the answers to my question, How many men does it take to repair a small stop tap?  It's 17 men from the Water Board using 9 different vehicles. Wonder if they could train 2 men to do the whole job in about a quarter of the time  !!!!!

Oh and look at the photo, it was the one on the right now replaced with what has turned out to be a very expensive round stop tap  and cover.